Daughter says pilot in Texas IRS crash was a hero

[TheQueen]

Mon Feb 22, 9:25 am ET

AUSTIN, Texas – The daughter of a man who crashed his small plane into a building housing offices of the Internal Revenue Service called her father a hero for his anti-government views but said his actions, which killed an IRS employee, were "inappropriate."

Joe Stack's adult daughter, Samantha Bell, spoke to ABC's "Good Morning America" from her home in Norway. Asked during a phone interview broadcast Monday if she considered her father a hero, she said: "Yes. Because now maybe people will listen."

Authorities say Stack, 53, targeted the IRS office building in Austin on Thursday, killing employee Vernon Hunter and himself, after posting a ranting manifesto against the agency and the government. He apparently set fire to his home before flying his plane into the office building.

Hunter's son, Ken Hunter, said he's alarmed by comments that the pilot was a hero.

"How can you call someone a hero who after he burns down his house, he gets into his plane ... and flies it into a building to kill people?" Hunter told ABC." "My dad Vernon did two tours of duty in Vietnam. My dad's a hero."

Bell said she offered her deepest condolences to Hunter's family. She said her father's last actions were wrong.

"But if nobody comes out and speaks up on behalf of injustice, then nothing will ever be accomplished," she told ABC. "But I do not agree with his last action with what he did. But I do agree about the government,"

[Hooker]

He's not a hero, he's a coward.

No, he's a cowardly terrorist.

No, he was.

[BeeJay]

This girl shouldn't be on TV. Her dad basically just became a suicide bomber without the belt. She probably has some complex emotions to untangle, to say the least.

[Garyhoov]

It's always really bugged me that the media puts these idiots up on pedestals and encourages others to do similar things. It's a lot easier to become famous with a simple, destructive act than it is to do anything positive.

If I owned a news outlet, I would make a policy to not publish the names of people who do these kinds of things. I wouldn't look into their lives or try to find the motivation behind their meaningless, destructive acts. In many cases, I think the motivation is that if they go into a closet and blow their brains out with a shot-gun, nobody will know their names, but if they do something like this, they'll be all over every available news outlet.

I would lead off stories with a script such as: "A complete loser who had no life or reason to live today shot up a mall. Let me tell you a little about the good people this low-life killed."

It's sad that, if someone asked the names of the murdering kids from the Colorado school shooting most of us could name them without thinking but few of us could name more than a handful of Nobel Prize recipients (if that).

[TheQueen]

Notice where she lives though? Norway. And she's praising her father for being anti-big government while living in a semi-Socialist country with one of the highest tax rates but with social welfare programs (http://retirement.gov/policy/docs/progdesc/ssptw/2004-2005/europe/norway.html) that anyone would envy. She's probably even benefiting from some of those programs. How ironic is that?:rollseyes

[figmentmom]

He's not a hero, he's a coward.

No, he's a cowardly terrorist.

No, he was.

Absolutely.


It's always really bugged me that the media puts these idiots up on pedestals and encourages others to do similar things. It's a lot easier to become famous with a simple, destructive act than it is to do anything positive.

If I owned a news outlet, I would make a policy to not publish the names of people who do these kinds of things. I wouldn't look into their lives or try to find the motivation behind their meaningless, destructive acts. In many cases, I think the motivation is that if they go into a closet and blow their brains out with a shot-gun, nobody will know their names, but if they do something like this, they'll be all over every available news outlet.

I would lead off stories with a script such as: "A complete loser who had no life or reason to live today shot up a mall. Let me tell you a little about the good people this low-life killed."


I agree. The daughter's remarks should not have received any media attention. Why romanticize such horrible acts? Cowardice is easy. Destruction is easy.

Remember after 9/11, the New York Times printed photos and biographies of some of those who lost their lives that day?


Notice where she lives though? Norway. And she's praising her father for being anti-big government while living in a semi-Socialist country with one of the highest tax rates but with social welfare programs (http://retirement.gov/policy/docs/progdesc/ssptw/2004-2005/europe/norway.html) that anyone would envy. She's probably even benefiting from some of those programs. How ironic is that?:rollseyes

I saw that. Plenty of irony, all of which, I'm sure, is lost on her.

[Doug11]

You can't blame a kid for sticking up for their parent, but the kid should have never been put in the spotlight. The person they want to talk to is dead of his own act, so they put on his next of kin? If the daughter becomes the object of scorn for her words, I blame the news reporter for that. He put that daughter in an untenable position.

The daughter should have probably declined to comment, but out of love for her father, she could have wanted the world to know the monster who committed that act is not the person she knew who read her bed time stories and kept her safe as a child. :shrug

[figmentmom]

You can't blame a kid for sticking up for their parent, but the kid should have never been put in the spotlight. The person they want to talk to is dead of his own act, so they put on his next of kin? If the daughter becomes the object of scorn for her words, I blame the news reporter for that. He put that daughter in an untenable position.

The daughter should have probably declined to comment, but out of love for her father, she could have wanted the world to know the monster who committed that act is not the person she knew who read her bed time stories and kept her safe as a child. :shrug

Yes, defending a beloved parent is a natural reaction. My point is the same as yours - the media should NOT have gone to her for a quote at all! What did they EXPECT her to say?!? By interviewing the perpetrator's next of kin, they were hoping for just about EXACTLY what she said.

[BeeJay]

Sometimes we argue; sometimes we all fall in line. :lookaroun :lol

[figmentmom]

Sometimes we argue; sometimes we all fall in line. :lookaroun :lol

That's what makes it interesting. :lol

[Christy]

I agree with her 100%! :lookaroun

Just trying to spice it up :goofy

[TheQueen]

Why so little attention to Vernon Hunter?

http://salon.com/news/opinion/joan_walsh/politics/2010/02/22/vernon_hunter/md_horiz.jpg

IRS bomber Joe Stack captured the news for days, but his African American, Vietnam vet victim has gone unheralded

I traveled this weekend and missed the identification of the only person killed by Joe Stack in his unsettling attack on the Internal Revenue Service office in Austin last week (h/t Crooks and Liars, Will Bunch). He is Vietnam veteran and IRS worker Vernon Hunter.

His son, Ken Hunter, told local reporters he was tired of the media paying too much attention to the fractured and incoherent political beliefs espoused by the demented Stack, and not enough attention to his father's life:

"There was just too much going on about what the guy did and what he believed in, and enough's enough. They don't need to talk about him. Talk about my dad. You know, some people are trying to make this guy out to be a hero, a patriot. My dad served two terms in Vietnam. This guy never served at all. My dad wasn't responsible for his tax problems."

Hunter said his father was the kind of guy who'd have tried to help Stack with the tax troubles that supposedly drove Stack to the violence that took Hunter's life.

Googling "Vernon Hunter" on Monday night I was stunned by how little the national media, beyond Bunch, Crooks and Liars, the Associated Press and ABC's Good Morning America, had paid attention to Stack's victim. GMA seemed to write about Hunter because the show featured Stack's daughter from his first marriage, Samantha Bell, calling her father a "hero." To her credit, Bell retracted her statement, and labeled Hunter the hero, when she learned about the man her father killed.

[figmentmom]

A senseless tragedy. :no

[Christy]

Why so little attention to Vernon Hunter?

http://salon.com/news/opinion/joan_walsh/politics/2010/02/22/vernon_hunter/md_horiz.jpg

IRS bomber Joe Stack captured the news for days, but his African American, Vietnam vet victim has gone unheralded

I traveled this weekend and missed the identification of the only person killed by Joe Stack in his unsettling attack on the Internal Revenue Service office in Austin last week (h/t Crooks and Liars, Will Bunch). He is Vietnam veteran and IRS worker Vernon Hunter.

His son, Ken Hunter, told local reporters he was tired of the media paying too much attention to the fractured and incoherent political beliefs espoused by the demented Stack, and not enough attention to his father's life:

"There was just too much going on about what the guy did and what he believed in, and enough's enough. They don't need to talk about him. Talk about my dad. You know, some people are trying to make this guy out to be a hero, a patriot. My dad served two terms in Vietnam. This guy never served at all. My dad wasn't responsible for his tax problems."

Hunter said his father was the kind of guy who'd have tried to help Stack with the tax troubles that supposedly drove Stack to the violence that took Hunter's life.

Googling "Vernon Hunter" on Monday night I was stunned by how little the national media, beyond Bunch, Crooks and Liars, the Associated Press and ABC's Good Morning America, had paid attention to Stack's victim. GMA seemed to write about Hunter because the show featured Stack's daughter from his first marriage, Samantha Bell, calling her father a "hero." To her credit, Bell retracted her statement, and labeled Hunter the hero, when she learned about the man her father killed.

:no